Snuff
by inkstainedlife
Summary: What are you running from?
1. Into My Fate

**TITLE:** Snuff: Into My Fate (PART 01/03)  
**RATING:** FRM  
**CHARACTER:** E. Prentiss / J. Jareau / A. Hotchner  
**SUMMARY: **What are you running from?  
******WARNINGS:** SPOILERS for 4. 15 - Demonology and 5.13 - Risky Business. Femslash, sexual content, mentions of self-harm.  
**NOTES:** Honestly, I just needed an excuse to write something really dark for Prentiss, just because she's really awesome angst fodder - tell me I'm wrong. Next two chapters will have more Hotch and Em. This one is for the girls. The title is taken from a song by Slipknot.

* * *

Her eyes are even darker than mine when she faces me in bed. I see the truth written there like blood on the wall and it's all I can do to keep my hands to myself; keep myself from slapping that look of contempt right off her pristine face.

"What are you running from, Em?"

She grasps my arm with lifeless fingers and begs for an answer. We act in this play, the same stage but a different character every night, talking like we're strangers; only affectionate when we're in bed together; going to work and playing the juxtaposition of darkness and light, all business, and not even a hint in either of our voices when I enter her office to bring her coffee to her - but I always hear the sharp intake of her breath when I turn to leave. And I never look back, I simply smile to myself as I walk out and quietly close her office door behind me. She's getting too close now, that's what I'm trying to escape from.

"Maybe I'm running out of things to say," I whisper and then I retrieve my arm from her grip and leave her shapeless form. I go to my bathroom, close the door, and turn on the sink faucet full-blast so she won't have to hear the dry sob creeping out of my throat.

* * *

"New case in Toledo, sixteen girls reported missing..."

I hear the normal routine in the briefing room, admiring the way her voice flutters slightly as she speaks and her bony knuckles quake against the file she holds in her hands. It isn't nerves, I know. She's done this too many times to be anxious about the nightmare she literally clutches within her grasp. Now is when she's her most alert, now is when I remember her as a sincere martyr and not a woman who just last night let me draw lazy shapes across her naked back with my tongue.

Tinker Bell. If she were a Disney character, she'd be Tinker Bell with her glacial eyes and the delicate curve of her jaw; it's the same spot I've pressed my lips against numerous times in the past. I smile briefly in spite of myself and shift in my seat as she looks around the table at the team. Her gaze lingers on me just one moment longer than the others.

This time it's my turn to try to mask the sharp intake of breath inside my lungs.

* * *

She enters my front door and I instantly pin her to the wall so I can inhale her breath, warm and demanding in my mouth, and her hair falls like silk between my fingers. She pushes me away, only slightly, so I can be evaporated in her stare.

"I missed you today," I whisper fervently as I help her begin to remove her clothing, grazing my teeth along the curve of her neck.

"Wait," she sighs, softly gripping my wrists, "shouldn't we go to the bedroom?"

I shake my head, allowing my hair to loosely fall over my shoulders like wet mud. I hear her breathe me in and I already know that waiting for the bedroom will take too long.

"No, I need you now."

We have sex on the floor and when she comes, she tells me that she loves me. I kiss her cheekbone, but I don't respond. My words get lost somewhere in her hairline.

I close my eyes, steeple my fingers with hers, and I grin into her chest when I think, _Second to the right, straight on till morning._

* * *

We're in a hotel room somewhere in Ohio, and even when I'm in her arms, she's honest and fearless when she speaks.

"What's this?" she asks one night as she discovers the thin white scar on my wrist and traces it like an artist.

I sit up and pull myself to the edge of the mattress, creating distance between us as I push her away. I glance over my shoulder and see her bright eyes digging a hole into my heart, trying to bury themselves in my past, pleading for an explanation. I keep telling her she should take the classes to become a profiler, she's so damn good at it. I stand up, silent like an old hollowed-out tree, and begin to put my boots back on.

"Em?" she asks mournfully, curiously, so fucking concerned. I can't take it. The last time someone told me that they loved me, I got knocked up. How was I supposed to know that I deserved any better? How was I supposed to know that one failed suicide attempt would find me in some blonde savior's bed twenty-five years later, and that she would be feathering my scar with kisses and questions, lightly sketching it and wondering what it all meant?

"Stop it, Jennifer."

She balks at my tone and the abrupt use of her first name. I watch her sit up but ignore the look she's giving me as I put my foot on the edge of the bed for leverage so I can zip up my boot.

"I don't..." I begin, but even I start to wonder exactly where I'm going, "it's not worth it. _I'm_ not worth it, actually. It's okay."

I manage a small smile without really looking at her, and then I leave her once again in the wake of my bleak shadow.

I know she's getting tired of this; I am, too.

* * *

**TO BE CONTINUED...**


	2. Listen To Your Shame

**TITLE:** Snuff: Listen To Your Shame (PART 02/03)  
**RATING:** FRM  
**CHARACTER:** E. Prentiss / J. Jareau / A. Hotchner  
**SUMMARY: **She knows how much these cases get to me...  
**WARNINGS:** SPOILERS for 4. 15 - Demonology and 5.13 - Risky Business. Femslash, sexual content, mentions of self-harm.  
**NOTES:** I swear I didn't intend to cheapen this story with a love triangle, but you know...shit happens. *shrug*  
**  
**

* * *

I find myself dancing at his threshold, anxious about being caught by Morgan or Reid, and wondering what I'm even doing here. But something inside me already knows. I put my fist up to knock, bring it down, put it back up, tentatively. And then the door opens. He stands still for a moment, not entirely surprised to see me here, penetrating me with eyes the color of damp wood and I have to bite my bottom lip to keep from crying. He holds the ice bucket in his hands and I take it from him as I slip past him to push my way inside.

"The ice machine's broken," I call over my shoulder as I toss the bucket on the bed and turn to face him, trying for casual as I plunk down on the mattress.

He closes the door and looks at me; he can see the desperation in my eyes, I know it. Hotch crosses the room to stand before me; he puts his hand to my face and tells me that my eyes are so dark he can see himself in them.

It's the same dialogue he used last time, and the time before that. He knows that formalities go out the window the second I come to him at midnight with the weight of the world on my shoulders and JJ's scent still lingering on my collarbone. He knows he's just being used. Aaron Hotchner is the only thing that can confirm what I've already known for years, and when I don't want to think or feel or acknowledge anything but rage, he's happy to let me take it out on him. His scars are the same as mine, jagged and unspoken. We leave hesitant fingerprints on one another where we've been permanently wounded, but it's a faint comfort.

Thirty minutes later, I'm putting my clothes back on and I can feel his eyes on my back when I start to leave.

"Emily," he says just as my palm touches the doorknob, "you couldn't possibly love anyone enough to hate them."

I can tell by the tone of his voice that he's challenging me to face him.

"Wanna bet?" I speak to the door, not to him, and then I make my exit without so much as a backwards glance.

* * *

It's silent on the flight back; we're a family divided. The three of us torn apart by lust or anger and as the rest of the team sleeps, we paint our smiles if our wandering eyes cross paths, and then quickly return to our stacks of paperwork or, in JJ's case, counting the clouds as they whisper alongside us like quiet waves.

* * *

Two days later there's another case in Altus, Oklahoma. This time five pregnant teens went missing. That's always going to be an unspoken stipulation, the one that's written in blood and has been the bane of my existence since I was 15. We find abused children in captivity, housewives with their throats slit, mangled body parts forgotten in some ditch on the side of the road, and I don't even blink. Then a pregnant teen goes missing. We find her body three days later with her baby crudely ripped from her womb and then thrown over the side of a bridge in a Hefty bag, and I can't make it home fast enough. I spend the night battling nausea and mostly losing, and JJ's still there to rub my back and bring me wet cloths for my forehead.

"Em, why won't you talk to me?" she whispers sweetly in my ear as I lift my head out of the toilet bowl and rock back onto my heels.

She gently brushes away the sweat-dampened hair that's plastered itself to my face and I try not to look at her. I know her eyes will capture me, get me lost, the blue in them surrounding me like oxygen. I won't be able to lie to those open vessels and tell her that I'm okay, it's just a stomach bug, I'll be fine, really. So I stare into my lap instead, my fingers curling around the porcelain bowl like some kind of sick lifeline.

"It's nothing," I mumble weakly and then I force myself to my feet and leave the bathroom with a light head and an empty heart.

I hear her following close behind and I can feel those sharp irises in my back, demanding answers. I collapse into bed, glancing at the clock on the bedside table. 4:30 AM. Have I really been puking for the past two hours? The jet landed at 1, and I didn't even make it home until after 2. I spent most of the flight in the narrow airplane restroom, fending off quiet knocks at the door - first JJ, then Morgan, then Rossi. All wanting to know if I'm okay, all asking if I need anything. I denied them all. I told JJ once we landed that I needed some time alone, but she insisted on staying with me. She knows how much these sort of cases get to me; knows that someone's got to be there to pull my hair back and bring me cups of crushed ice so I won't dehydrate. We caught the unsub, but it was a small victory muted out by the emotional breakdown which I knew was inevitable. Still, she expects this and she'll get me through it every time.

I shut my eyes as she slips into bed beside me and I feel her small hand tuck a lock of my hair behind my ear before it closes around my hipbone like she's afraid I'm going to slip away. Maybe it would be better if I did.

"You can't keep this up forever," she says firmly, "eventually you're going to have to talk to me-"

"Not now, JJ, please..." I cut in with a tired voice, keeping my eyes sealed.

"No, not now. But promise me that you will, soon. I can't stand seeing you like this."

I don't respond, I know better than to make empty promises. I turn over so my back is to her and I won't have to feel those ice-blue orbs slicing away my flesh until they reach the marrow of my bones.

* * *

**TO BE CONTINUED...**


	3. Angels Lie

**TITLE:** Snuff: Angels Lie (PART 03/03)  
**RATING:** FRM  
**CHARACTER:** E. Prentiss / J. Jareau / A. Hotchner  
**SUMMARY:** And the rain begins to pour down on me.  
**WARNINGS:** SPOILERS for 4. 15 - Demonology and 5.13 - Risky Business. Femslash, sexual content, mentions of self-harm.  
**NOTES:** Here's what I think is the finished project. I know it's lame but you're lucky you even got _three _chapters out of me. I have a very short attention span, and this is why I mostly stick to writing drabbles. :)

* * *

I awake heavily, still groggy, and I hear her finishing up in the shower before I even open my eyes. I can smell her scent flowing from the bathroom and filling my sinuses and all I can think about is how that's got to be the most wonderful thing to wake up to. Better than coffee, more powerful than watching the sun peak over the horizon.

Then she's at my bedside, soaking wet in my bathrobe and putting one soft palm to my forehead. I manage to open one of my eyes to look up at her and it takes every ounce of energy I have. She tells me that maybe I should call in sick today and suddenly I bolt upright, startling her, asking for the time.

"It's 6:30," she says.

"Shit," I mumble as I drag myself from beneath the covers which I know she must have placed over me while I was out. "I have to get moving. Hotch wants that report on his desk by eight."

"I think Hotch will understand. Let me take care of it for you," I hear her say but I'm already tearing off my sweat-stained clothes, frantically turning on the shower and fumbling for my black boots and slacks which are buried somewhere in the dark recesses of my walk-in closet.

I unbury them and then turn to see her glaring at me in the doorway of my open closet. I freeze. She's blocking my way intentionally, with one arm propped defensively against the door and the other on its frame. Suddenly I feel very naked and exposed even though I've still got my underwear on, but I self-consciously hold my boots and slacks in front of me like a shield. I feel like a child that knows it's done something wrong and is about to get the lecture from hell. I avert my eyes and I wait. I hate it when she does this, flips the script, turns the tables on me so its _her_ profiling _me._

"I think you should call in. You just spent all night puking your guts out, and you look like death warmed over. Besides...we need to talk. You promised."

My eyes turn five shades of fierce when I finally look at her and say a little too roughly, "No..._you_ promised. And anyway, what are you gonna do...call in sick too? I'm pretty sure they're going to put two-and-two together. A _gibbon monkey _would figure that we're fucking."

Her eyes soften and her body relaxes, her arms dropping defeatedly to her sides. She sighs heavily.

"Tonight?" she asks.

"Tonight, I'm all yours," I reply and then I rush past her to begin my usual morning routine, ignoring the worry-lines on her forehead and the frown at the corners of her lips.

* * *

He asks how I am the second I drop the file on his desk. Christ. It's going to be like this all day. But the way his eyes are fixed on me, I know there's some deeper meaning in his question. His tone is asking if I'm going to fall apart tonight; he's asking me if I need a warm body to erase the past and help me disappear. He wants to know why I haven't shown up on his doorstep since that night in Ohio. He doesn't love me the same way she does, I know this, but I also know that he at least cares enough to pretend not to care.

Still, Hotch isn't quietly sympathetic like Rossi or Reid. I don't expect him to be. I feel my jaw tighten but I force a small smile and nod my head.

"You're sleeping okay?" he asks, trying not to sound overly-concerned and failing.

"I slept fine, Aar-_Sir_...thanks for asking," I say stupidly. I know that was a slip; in his office, he's still my superior. In bed, I'm his.

He looks at me suspiciously and tells me that my eyebrow twitches when I'm lying. I tell him that it just fits the profile. I force another fake smile and then turn around and leave his office so shamefully that it almost looks proud.

* * *

It's half past midnight and I'm not entirely shocked to find myself at his apartment door. We aren't meant to be here. It was only a phone call, a late-night request for solace. He lets me in, offers me something to drink which I consume in one gulp, two gulps, three. I should have known it would be a mistake to call him, but he doesn't seem to be complaining now. In fact, now, his lips are floating against my palm like he wants to tell it a secret and he's looking at me with curiosity, a shining child in his eyes. There's also that metaphorical hand touching my heart, grasping that beating organ and staring down into me, begging me to fall. So I do.

"We can't..." he growls from somewhere deep inside his throat, but he doesn't stop. I taste the alcohol on his breath and I delve deeper, wanting to swallow his inebriation. _Here he is in the light, _I think, _and for once, he's waiting for me._ We have sex on the couch and then when he moves to press his hand against my spine and through my hair, I pull myself up, begin to dress myself.

"Maybe next time," he says, "you'll actually look at me."

I shake my head as I button up my jeans. "There's not going to be a next time."

And then I leave him on the couch. I forget my shoes and I walk barefoot out onto the street. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. The sky breaks open like a loose fist and the rain begins to pour down on me.

* * *

I walked in the rain for fifteen minutes with naked feet, mostly just outside her apartment complex. Mostly pacing back and forth along the front steps, and mostly trying to talk myself out of going inside. Now, I stand in front of her door, the entrance that seperates my world from hers, dripping water onto the floor and not really caring. She answers with a look of awe, unsure of how to embrace a soggy me. Also, I imagine, unsure of what to say for the first time since I've known her. She leans against the door and rests her head lazily against its hard surface. She looks at me with unblinking eyes and a shy smile, and I know right then I don't have to worry about her turning me away.

I know that tomorrow will be the same; we'll pretend like we don't even know each other, I'll mechanically bring her cup of coffee to her and I'll leave her office with a smile, knowing she can hardly breathe around me. Then night will fall. And I'll find myself alone in my bed so I'll greedily climb into hers. I know that we'll exchange scars - my abortion and her sister's suicide - and I'll push her away but she'll always welcome me back with a curious smile. Especially when I knock at three in the morning and my hair and clothes are dripping water at her doorstep.

"I couldn't sleep," I tell her softly.

"I know," she replies matter-of-factly, then she takes my hand and leads me inside.

* * *

**THE END**


End file.
